Annotations for Poem: Transcription

Everyone in the world is going to bed one night or another with fear

Or pain or loss

Or dissapointment

And yet each of us has arisen

Somehow made our ablutions seem other humans beings

And said morning how are you, fine thanks and you

It's amazing wherever that abides in the human being

There is the nimbleness of the human spirit

Despite it all black and white, asian, spanish, native american

Pretty, plain, thin

Fat

Vow to celebate

We rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

Just ’cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room

Just like suns and like moons

With the certainty of tides

Just like hope springing high

Still I'll rise

Do you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes

Shoulders falling down like tear drops

Weakened by my soulful cries

Does my sassiness upset you?

Don'e take it so hard just cause I laugh

As if I have gold mines

Diggin' in my own backyard

You can shoot me with your words

You can cut me with your lies

You can kill me with your hatefulness

But just like life, I rise

Does my sexiness offend you?

Awe, does it come as a surprise?

That I dance

Like I've got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs

Out of the huts of hickory shame, I rise

Up from the past that's rooted in pain, I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise

Into a day break that's wondrously clear, I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave

I am the dream and the hope of the slave

And so naturally,

There I go rising.